Great to hear from you again Alan!
It is encouraging to see many of the “old timers” surfacing “digitally” even as
we are forced to hunker down “physically.”
Clearly many broadcasters around the world are comfortable with the image
quality of the programming they are delivering. But they are far less
comfortable about making new investments in their infrastructure, as TV
entertainment continues to migrate to the Internet.
The new reality is that we now have a highly distributed broadcast
infrastructure that everyone can use - the Internet delivered via cellular.
Radio broadcasting is still highly viable - it does not require significant
bandwidth, and almost everyone still uses it.
The same cannot be said about TV broadcasting, although I suspect that a much
higher percentage of consumers in Europe are still using those 576 line
interlaced broadcasts, than consumers in the U.S. watching HDTV broadcasts.
Regards
Craig
On Mar 22, 2020, at 2:57 PM, Alan Roberts (Redacted sender roberts.mugswell
for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
576-line TV at 50Hz interlaced is very much still alive and is the de facto
broadcast standard across the whole of Europe. Of the 134 UK channels I can
get from Freeview, only about a dozen are HD, and those are all
1920x1080/50i. Several more channels are available in HD but only behind
payment walls for cable or satellite TV (remember that I said I get TV via
Freeview, that's over the air from Crystal palace through an aerial on my
roof). Only a few of those SD channels are 4:3, and that's only because the
material they show is from before 1990 (some is still from before 1960). All
channels are, or can be, 16x9.
'625' line TV (i.e. 576-line x 720 in digitas) is still very much alive.
Alan Roberts
On 22/03/2020 12:47, Olivier Houot wrote:
Strange feeling to see a depiction of 576 lines TV as still a current
format in Europe. It seems so far ago, now...
I do not watch netflix or similar internet providers for TV
I am still on terrestrial broadcast TV, and all channels seem to be HDTV
(at least the ones i watch). Indeed, it is 1080i. However it is nice
enough, at least on channels that care about quality (Arte, for
example). Clearly, even the potential of this container is not used to
its maximum in many cases.
Progressive could possibly further improve on that, perhaps together
with some bandwidth gain. However, my old faithful 2008 receiver would
probably not handle it.
Currently my only contact with 625 lines TV is with the old Dr Who
episodes from the sixties that i watch from DVD on an
end-of-the-eighties 4:3 CRT, to be closer to the feeling of the time.
I've seen the switch from the english System A 405 lines system to 625 a
few episodes ago ("The Enemy of the World"), and i am 2 or three
episodes away from the switch to color (third doctor)...That is to say i
am in deep legacy :-)
I would be sad if broadcast TV were to disappear, and the magic of radio
with it, something that does not require the continuity of a material
link between the provider and the end user, which can be damaged by
various events including public works, seismic events, or simply failure
of one the components along the way.
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